The characteristics of money items vary widely. For example, the dimensions and materials of money items such as coins and tokens differ significantly. The differences are present both within individual currencies and between different currencies.
The variations between different money items have presented a challenge to the money item conveying industry because it has been difficult to singulate and convey all world money items using a single conveyor. In particular, the large differences in size between the largest and smallest world coins and other money items have made it difficult to provide a conveying track which is capable of reliably separating and individually presenting all of the different money items for payout and other purposes. A solution which has been adopted previously is to provide interchangeable conveying tracks so that a suitably shaped and sized conveying track can be installed in or order to suit the specific money items which are to be conveyed.
An example of a prior art conveying track is illustrated in FIG. 1. The track members are large enough to accept and convey large world coins, but a consequence of their size is that each track member is also capable of conveying two small world coins without singulation. Therefore, if such small coins or other money items are fed onto the track members, a possible consequence is an unintended double-payout, or similar, which is undesirable.
Another issue which is relevant to money item conveyors, and particularly those which convey money items of different denominations and currencies, is the capability to validate or otherwise check the money items which are being conveyed on the conveyor. For example, it is desirable to check that the money items being conveyed on the conveyor are those which are expected or desired at the destination.
Incorporating suitable automatic money item sensing equipment into a conveying system has been problematic because of the small space envelopes which industry requires the conveying system to fit within. The resulting compact nature of conveying systems has left little space for the sensing equipment, particularly in the regions around the conveying track.